The facilities services department discovered similar mold contamination in numerous rooms in Bloomberg Hall, another building with basement rehearsal spaces, the story stated.

Tigerlilies president Miriam Marek said: "When I walked into the room, I saw that [the mold] was on the couches, on our piano and the baseboards of the walls. We''re singers, so we can’t have mold in our room ... It would have been terrible during auditions for anyone with allergies ... I had no idea the damage would be so extensive."

According to the story, the facilities department is working with environmental consultants to remedy the damage, but there are no guarantees that all items will be salvageable.

Items with hard surfaces, such as tables and lamps, were cleaned and stored in trailers off campus while some memorabilia collected by the Tigerlilies over 40 years was damaged beyond repair and was discarded, the story noted.

The widespread mold growth is being blamed on the university''s decision to turn off air-circulation systems over the summer to reduce energy consumption, a decision that coincided with one of the wettest summers in recent history, the story added.